MAREN (BS2000)

With the introduction of the MAREN system, manual management of data volumes in a BS2000 computer center can be replaced by a computer-supported and largely automated process. As a result, security in processing and storage of data volumes will be substantially increased and confusion and overwriting practically eliminated. At the same time, with MAREN certain activities in volume management, work process scheduling and operating can be dealt with more effectively and economically.

MAREN is a system for the management of data volume resources in a BS2000 Data Center. MAREN stores all volume, file and access information in a MAREN catalog. This may also be a central catalog containing information on several computer systems. Data transfer between computer systems is carried out using RFA. In order to keep the information in the MAREN catalog up to date, the MAREN system is directly coupled with BS2000. When processing data volumes with STD labels, access authorization checks are carried out in addition to the BS2000 DMS routines. These ensure that volumes cannot be inadvertently overwritten or accessed by unauthorized persons.

MAREN supports multifile and multivolume media and permits administration of external and special tapes (NSTD/ NOLABEL tapes). Volume groups provide a means of collectively administering and processing logically related tapes (tape sets) belonging to an HSMS/ARCHIVE backup in MAREN. An important feature of MAREN is "automatic free tape assignment", which in the case of MOUNT SCRATCH selects and reserves free data volumes.

When a MAREN catalog is in operation for multiple systems in a cluster, the functions of the domain concept can be used to keep the resources managed via MAREN segregated between the cluster participants.
MAREN supports tape encryption on LTO drives as of LTO-4.